Japan’s Sono goes to ‘Hell’

Helmer preps his next film

TOKYO — Japanese helmer Sion Sono, whose disaster drama “The Land of Hope” won the Netpac award at Toronto this year, is working on comic actioner “Jigoku de Naze Warui Why Don’t You Play in Hell?”

Based on a script Sono wrote 15 years ago, the pic stars Shinichi Tsutsumi as a gangster with a grudge against an older rival (Jun Kunimura), but a deep love for his enemy’s actress daughter Mitsuko (Fumi Nikaido).

The pic has an “accidental resemblance to ‘Kill Bill,’ ” Sono said.

Nikaido first worked with Sono as a troubled teen in last year’s “Himizu,” for which she and co-star Shota Sometani received the Venice fest’s Marcello Mastroianni Award for best new actor and actress.